UK GHCQ Is Allowed To Hack (bbc.co.uk)

An anonymous reader writes: A security tribunal has just decreed that hacking by the UK security agency GCHQ is legal. [The case was launched after revelations by Edward Snowden about the extent of US and UK spying. Campaigners Privacy International claimed GCHQ's hacking operations were too intrusive]. The legal challenge that they were violating European law was rejected.

Comments

Re:Makes a lot of sense

[Motherfucking Shit]

Government grants itself authority to break the law.

And governments around the world have entered into agreements to spy on each others' citizens to explicitly skirt the law.

From several recent news stories, Windows 10's biggest telemetry offender IP seems to be 94.245.121.253, which apologists are quick to tell you is "just a Teredo server" to assist with ipv6. No big deal, it's just helping the OS function! Don't pay any attention to the man behind the curtain, he's just making sure your internet works...

Funny, though, that IP is in the UK, yet Windows 10 installations in the US insist on connecting to it. That's definitely not a matter of efficiency or responsiveness or good customer experience, as the hop across the pond adds a few hundred milliseconds to every packet. For those who might need reminding, communications originating in the US where the endpoint is in a foreign nation are considered fair game for NSA snooping. And it's been known since the ECHELON revelations in the 90s that the "Five Eyes" group of countries have an arrangement to bypass laws against spying on their own citizens by engaging in reciprocal interception and sharing the data among themselves.

Something to think about, that's all.